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China Technology

The Netherlands To Block Export of Advanced Chips Printers To China (politico.eu) 50

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The Dutch government confirmed for the first time Wednesday it will impose new export controls on microchips manufacturing equipment, bowing to U.S. pressure to block the sale of some of its prized chips printing machines to China. The U.S. and the Netherlands reached an agreement to introduce new export restrictions on advanced chip technology to China at the end of January, but until now, the Dutch government hadn't commented publicly on it. The deal, which also included Japan, involves the only three countries that are home to manufacturers of advanced machines to print microchips. It is a U.S.-led initiative to choke off the supply of cutting-edge chips to China.

"Given the technological developments and geopolitical context, the government has concluded that it is necessary for the (inter)national security to expand the existing export controls on specific manufacturing equipment for semiconductors," Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher wrote in a letter to Dutch lawmakers published Wednesday evening. The Dutch government wants to prevent Dutch technology from being used in military systems or weapons of mass destruction, Schreinemacher wrote — echoing the U.S. reasoning when it imposed its own export controls in October. The Netherlands also wants to avoid losing its pole position in producing cutting-edge chip manufacturing tools: Schreinemacher said the government wants to uphold "Dutch technological leadership." While China is not explicitly named in Schreinemacher's letter, the new policy is targeted at Chinese efforts to overtake the U.S. and others like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and leading European countries in the global microchips supply chain.

The new export restrictions deal a blow to ASML, the global leader in producing advanced microchips printing machines based in Veldhoven, in southern Netherlands. In the letter, Schreinemacher said the new export control measures include the most advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV) machines, which are part of ASML's advanced chips printers portfolio. The Dutch firm, which is the highest-valued tech company in Europe, already did not receive export licenses for selling its most advanced machines using extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) technology to China since 2019. ASML in a statement confirmed it will now "need to apply for export licenses for shipment of the most advanced immersion DUV systems," but it noted it has not yet received more details about what "most advanced" means.
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The Netherlands To Block Export of Advanced Chips Printers To China More

The Netherlands To Block Export of Advanced Chips Printers To China

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  • It's like the old nuclear game all over again. Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.

    And with their govt pouring money into this effort, it just makes it a matter of time.

    • Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @08:00PM (#63354809)

      It's like the old nuclear game all over again. Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.

      And with their govt pouring money into this effort, it just makes it a matter of time.

      Ideally by the time they spend enough money to replicate the current state-of-the-art the rest of us will have already moved on to the next better thing.

      The point is not to freeze them in time, just to stay perpetually ahead, to both their economic and military detriment.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ac2022 ( 9142601 )
        It is only possible if they don't develop their own equipment and rely on import only. But it is not the case, the ban was imposed more than 5 years ago and they've reached 7 nm tech process last year themselves. Read something outside your rainbow unicorn news box. The military equipment does not need 7nm at all, it should be 150-300 nm at least to be reliable in radiation and in space. The military applications need a light weight trivial real time OS fitting into 2 megs of ram.

        • Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @09:01PM (#63354929)

          It is only possible if they don't develop their own equipment and rely on import only. But it is not the case, the ban was imposed more than 5 years ago and they've reached 7 nm tech process last year themselves. Read something outside your rainbow unicorn news box. The military equipment does not need 7nm at all, it should be 150-300 nm at least to be reliable in radiation and in space. The military applications need a light weight trivial real time OS fitting into 2 megs of ram.

          That is nice. Intel recently announced their 2nm process which was noted on a /. thread just yesterday. Hopefully by the time they get to two the civilized world will be working with sub-nanometer.

          Also, military operations are not just guided missiles and smart bombs, and those mostly use ASICs which we don't share either. C&C and global situational awareness, especially leveraging the latest buzzword AI, won't run in 2 megs in any case.

          • Mod up. It is a non tariff trade barrier, and dare we mention local production subsidies - ordinarily illegal under WTO rules. Under those same rules, China can now make their processes - but not for export. However memory bandwidth is a bigger blocker than cpu speed presently. .TSMC said USA factories will NOT be getting the latest and greatest - lagging a few years. I suggest China will match USA in two years time, despite sanctions - but remain behind TSMC. And If wrong, the inverse square rule applies.

            • training wheels.
              is china saying it still needs economic assistance.
              or are we observing dependency issues

              • Both. If China invests the capital to make competitive chips in volume, then secondary multi-country trade boycotts costs them dearly. Dependency because at those shrinks, absolute purity is needed. See Japan not exporting to Korea some pure chemicals. Now if they do both, then they got to get their technique right, and be sure of no power interruptions. A third problem is moving standards - plenty more time to blunt market acceptance. Given CPU performance is less an issue than memory bandwidth, they will

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jon3k ( 691256 )

              I suggest China will match USA in two years time, despite sanctions

              I'll take that bet. How much you willing to wager?

              7nm is DUV, and the limit of DUV node size, and China has no access to EUV. Meanwhile, TSMC said [bloomberg.com] they will be producing 4nm EUV in the US next year.

              • Bet not taken - because of recent events. Huawei has lodged a patent on EUV - this should be interesting. But low speed multiple passes is way off mass production with subpar EUV strength. I presume it will cover plasma tin.mercury in a vacuum. Secondly TSMC was tricked into shrinking USA fab sizes, and only got 10% of the free money handouts.Intel got 30% odd, and will offer a lab (in China) making EUV chips - but not for use by the CCP- it is firewalled. Finally TSMC is going to stock China with 20+nm pro

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            """2nm""" isn't really 2nm at all. The names are pretty meaningless now.

            China is throwing a lot of money at this, and it doesn't even have to win. Maybe the West will be able to stay a generation ahead, but that only matters for the very high end. We all like having cheap, smart devices, right?

            AMD is actually using older processes for some components to save money. Their chiplet designs mean they can fabricate different parts of a CPU or GPU on difference processes. They found that some parts don't benefit

            • That's why when you look at the EU and Japan investing in fabs, they typically are not the very cutting edge nodes, they are the nodes that are a little older but which comprise the majority of manufacturing output.

              As the recent chip shortages in the automotive sector demonstrated there is still a huge need for legacy chip designs, but that is not where the profit is, so that is not where the spending will occur without government help.

              China will keep throwing money at the problem.

              We would expect nothing less. Better to make them work for it than giving it away.

              We should be competing with investment ourselves.

              Pretty sure we are. That is why China are not global leaders, and we plan to keep it that way.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jon3k ( 691256 )
              Any node size below 7nm requires EUV. Which China has no access to (ASML is the only company on earth producing EUV lithography machines) and took decades for the entire world, collectively, to develop. This is the end-of-the-road for China, as far as node size is concerned. Meanwhile we'll be producing 4nm chips in the US next year [macrumors.com].

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Sure. None of this has much to do with China's military. It's the US trying to cripple a competitor economy. In the 80s it was Japan that looked like its economy might get too big. Japan was an important ally so sanctions wouldn't do, but high tariffs would.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jon3k ( 691256 )
          Which is the absolute best possible scenario for DUV. They have no access to EUV lithography which took the rest of the world decade(s?) to develop. I would recommend this [theregister.com] for some details of why this is kind of the end-of-the-road for China's node shrinking. It's also only been able to produce ASICs on 7nm as far as anyone knows, not complete general purpose CPUs. The chips that they produced at 7nm were very small [techarp.com]. Who knows how many years they are from scaling up to create competitive CPU and again,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Threatening big countries' access to strategic resources is great for peace. Look how well it worked out in the middle east.

        • Threatening big countries' access to strategic resources is great for peace.

          Handing big countries with a stated intent to run the world access to strategic resources is great for peace?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Well, if you don't give them to the Americans they either have the CIA overthrow your government and install a dictator, or invade and kill lots of people, so yeah, it does seem to have mostly worked out on the peace side.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Remember the problems Intel has to even keep up?

    • Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @08:10PM (#63354827)

      Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.

      Perhaps. But other companies have been trying to compete with ASML for many years, and none have succeeded.

      China may build 5nm EUV steppers in a decade, but by then, the leading edge will have moved on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Except that in this case, it's not. We always knew that it "could be done". What we didn't know was "how it could be done". And specifics weren't "how do we generate this laser", theory was mostly solid by 1970s.

      It's the "how do you manufacture a mirror of this size with this little surface distortions" and "how do you get lasers to be this accurate" and so on. It's practical, engineering problems of QC.

      This is why even if Dutch were to sell ASML to China tomorrow, it wouldn't help it to any significant ext

      • China can make their own DUV machines. It just that they aren't any good and are still stuck at 90nm.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Do you have any company name or product name to toss my way so I could search for it and correct my potential misconseptions?

    • From experience, Lets just say that making a nuclear bomb is much easier than ASMLs EUV tool. ASML direct competitors try time and again and fail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ph1ll ( 587130 )

      No, there's a much simpler workaround.

      Some other EU country will buy from the Dutch and then ship to the Chinese. There are no export controls within the EU so there's nothing the US can do about it under the terms of this agreement.

      • I heard each of those ASML machines are followed with a bunch of ASML engineers who help the customers use those machines.

        Wonder how useful it will be to have the machines without the people to show you how to best make use of it.

        After all it's not like a simple motherboard where you can look at the manual and get an understanding of what the motherboard capabilities are and the number of devices you can plug into it's USB / PCIE / SATA / etc slots.

        • Considering that the previous generation cost 100 million, and the current one 250 million per machine, yeah, they will send engineers to the customer site to get things going. It's not like stepping into a different car and driving off...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        No, there's a much simpler workaround.

        Some other EU country will buy from the Dutch and then ship to the Chinese. There are no export controls within the EU so there's nothing the US can do about it under the terms of this agreement.

        You do not understand how tight the tolerances are on this equipment, nor how integral it is to chip production.

        I worked at *a_chip_manufacturer_in_Santa_Clara,_CA*. When we got one of these mask making setups for our new fab, it was delivered in several containers, and assembled on the bare concrete slab -and then the three story facility was built around it.

        This is large, high precision equipment. You do not just unbox it, turn it on, and go. Entire facilities are designed around it, and ASML sends in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Unfortunately, yes. And that will make CHina more powerful and the rest of the world less powerful. Forcing an opponent to upgrade its capabilities is about the most stupid thing that can be done.

  • We're bored about the Ukrainian conflict right now so let's focus on a new challenge.
    More weapons sales can be made in many other parts of the world.

  • Are they talking about UV lights used for sub 7nm etching?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Your printer has run out of UV light blinker fluid.

  • So the thinking here...Taiwan? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by presidenteloco ( 659168 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2023 @08:00PM (#63354811)
    I guess this is to dissuade China from invading Taiwan, since if they do that there's a decent chance the TSMC advanced-chip fabs would be destroyed.

    And if China doesn't have their own at-home equivalent to TSMC, they would be shooting themselves in the foot, along with everyone else's feet.
  • Planning for this since 2019. They aren’t getting blindsided by this. They’ve already written of most of their Chinese business. Hardly a “blow”.
  • By John J. Mearsheimer in a video "Why China Cannot Rise Peacefully" https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] TLDR if your GDP passes the US you are a threat, doesn't matter who your are, the hegemon will try to take you down.

  • What good is an export restriction when Intel, a USA corp., is apparently leapfrogging the current chip fabrication technology - and doing it in China?

    https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]

    Before teh USA starts strong-arming allies to restrict exports to China, the USA should get its own house in order. How many Intel executives will go to jail for violating export restrictions? The number rhymes with nero.

  • We need to Stop buying Everything from China.
    Their stated goal is to Rule the World.

    That used to Scare people.
    Now it's all about the Benjamins for the Corps.
    Selling US out and the Dutch.
    Good for them for blocking this.
    Everybody else wake up.
    .

  • Their only world-class tech firm has just been knee-capped by US regulations. Payback for GDPR?

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